Former world light heavyweight contender "Iceman" John Scully is nearly finished - almost three years after beginning - with his autobiography slash boxing book, entitled THE ICEMAN DIARIES. The book will feature more than 300 pages of boxing stories, opinions, reviews, and more. The book will include, but not be limited to, accounts of sparring with the likes of James Toney, Roy Jones, Vinny Pazienza, and Henry Maske.

It will also include a thorough account of his IBF world title fight with Maske, his NABO title fight with Michael Nunn, training/boxing tips, the state of amateur boxing, and a memorable review of the golden years of amateur boxing. It will also include a full review of 1980's (Hagler-Hearns, Leonard-Duran, Holmes-Cooney, etc.) and much, much more.

Much of the book features diary entries written by the Iceman as events unfolded in his boxing life. From first hand accounts of Jones amateur loss to Gerald McClellan, Roy Jones sparring with future world champ Reggie "Sweet" Johnson, and Riddick Bowe getting stopped in the nationals back in 1988 by U.S. Army soldier Robert Salters. The book will also feature a group of tremendous pictures from a 25 year life in boxing including Scully and Jones together as 18 year old amateurs and Scully shadowboxing with The Greatest, Muhammad Ali, back in 1991.

John Scully can be reached directly for more information on his book at IceJohnScully@aol.com or you can visit his website at www.icemanjohnscully.com

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Below is an UN-edited chapter from the THE ICEMAN DIARIES.

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I believe you would have to assume that a person that gets into any professional sport must do so at some point because he wants to be the best at it. Maybe money is a factor, too, at a certain age and other personal reasons may also come into play somewhere down the line, but you would have to think that when the guy first starts out playing his sport as a kid, it is for the love of the game. He doesn't dream of being rich from it as much as he does being the champion of it.

I fought for the International Boxing Federation (IBF) World Light heavyweight title at Leipzig, Germany, losing a 12 round decision in the first half of 1996 to the reigning and defending Champion, Henry Maske. It was supposed to be the highlight of a career, win, lose or draw. Not many fighters ever get to fight for the world championship of the IBF, WBA or WBC. By comparison, since the great Connecticut champion Willie Pep retired in the mid 1960's, there has been only one recognized world champion from the entire state of Connecticut and that was Marlon Starling in the late 1980's. Tyrone Booze was fighting out of Florida when he won a WBO 195lb. title in the early 1990's and Eric Harding fought for the world 175lb. title against Roy Jones in 2000 but was originally from Philadelphia. Hartford's Angel Vazquez, Troy Wortham and Lawrence Clay-Bey have broken into the world ratings at one point or another but none have fought for world titles. Chad Dawson is world ranked and could very well fight for a world title within two years, as may a guy from Norwalk (although he is now boxing out of New York) named Travis Sims.

So, I was one of the few in Connecticut history to actually fight for the legitimate world title and it was an honor and all, but I can honestly say that even to this day, I hardly ever even think about that fight or the circumstances of it. I mean, fighting for a world title is an accomplishment for sure, but there are more guys that fight for world titles than actually win them. Maybe years from now when I look back on it I will appreciate it more but the fact is that I wasn't the world champion before I fought Maske and I wasn't after I fought him either.

As I clearly state in other parts of this book, I never got into boxing for the money. You may say I'm crazy or just saying it for the sake of this book but anybody that knows me on this level will tell you that I am very truthful when I say that I would box even if money wasn't involved. I started boxing, officially, at age fourteen and my main motivation at that time was to be a Golden Gloves Champion. To be famous. To be known like the guy I read so much about, Muhammad Ali. I wanted to write poems for my opponents and fight in front of crowds of people and be recognized on the streets where I would be asked for autographs. I wanted trophies and medals and then, when I got older, I wanted title belts. I wanted to go to every gym I could and spar with every good guy that I could. If he was the best there was in the gym then I wanted to match up with him. Sometimes I sparred with champions and contenders and laughed inside when they paid me for it because I would have done it for free. As a matter of fact I did spar with them for free many times, sometimes driving two hours just to see what I could do with them.

So, of course, when I got the offer to fight for the Light Heavyweight Championship of the whole wide world in 1996, I didn't hesitate to accept the fight. I mean, I was the guy who got into boxing and stayed in it because I loved the feeling of being an amateur and professional fighter. There's no feeling to me like walking into a gym or a fight or anywhere else for that matter and having people know that you are a boxer. They know you for years, went to school with you and grew up with you and know that you have done other things with your life but when they see you somewhere the first thought that pops into their head is "There goes the boxer."

So, with that in mind, there was just no way to say "No" when asked to fight for the most prestigious title available to all boxers in the whole wide world. You have your NABF, USBA, International, Intercontinental, XYZ, and ABC belts that come and go -I could take them or leave them - but there is only one "world" and when you get an offer to fight for the right to be its King you just don't say "No."

So of course I said "Yes" when asked but, the thing is, I can't really tell this story without mentioning something else that was going on in my life at the time, something much more important than any world title fight. I wrote a few paragraphs ago that I wasn't the world champ before I fought Henry and I wasn't after I fought him, either. But that certainly wasn't the most pressing issue in my life in May of 1996.

In February of 1995, I woke up early one morning with plans to head to Ann Arbor, Michigan to train with James "Lights Out" Toney and help him prepare for his first fight with Montell Griffin. When I got up, however, my mother was still in bed and complaining to me about numbness in her legs. It was bad enough that she could not get out of bed. I tried to help her up to see if she could "walk it off" but it was just not happening at that time. She had fallen a couple days earlier in the house and felt some distress in her leg at the time. Maybe that was the cause of it?

I postponed my flight to later in the morning and I picked my mother up out of bed and carried her to my car and drove her to Hartford Hospital where they did a series of tests that came back inconclusive. The doctor told me that there wasn't much they could do at that time. He suspected that she was just feeling discomfort from the fall from a few days earlier and that "probably by tomorrow she will be back to normal." I was no doctor. So I took her back home and, after making sure she was comfortable, I caught the later flight to Detroit. I figured she would be OK in a few hours just like the doctor said.

Looking back on that day I have no idea what I, or they, were thinking!!! I mean, here is a sixty something year old woman that suddenly stopped being able to walk one morning and not only did the doctors not have any idea why this happened but they sent her home from the ER thinking that the problem would somehow just go away! I don't know who is crazier: Them for thinking that or me for believing them.

I stayed the night at James' house and when I got up the next morning JT and his boys were heading out to go to the health club for a workout. I had stayed up late the previous night so I remained at the house and slept late. I cannot remember exactly what transpired next. I don't know if I received a phone call or made a call to my house to check in. I don't know who I spoke to. But I do know that my mother was brought by ambulance back to Hartford Hospital the night before. I immediately called Bronco McKart to see if he could get a hold of Jackie Kallen for me so I could get back home ASAP. Since he knew I was a veteran of the famous "James Toney training camp pranks," Bronco assumed that I was calling him so early because things were already getting out of control. When he realized it was me on the phone his first words were "What happened? They cut your hair already or what?" I immediately explained the situation and he knew it was no joke. He got through to Jackie for me and arrangements were made for me to catch the next plane home.

When I arrived back in Hartford I went straight to the Hartford Hospital where my Mother was in the bed with one of those "Halos" literally screwed into her head to keep her spine from shifting (like Vinny Paz had worn after his car accident in 1991). Apparently, she had cancer in her neck and it was attached to her spine in a way where it was not visible by X-rays. In effect, it was hidden from them. Come to think of it, often times in the previous couple months, she complained of pain in her neck and would have me massage her neck and back at night. Now we knew the source of the pain but it was too late. The cancer had weakened her spine so much that she was now paralyzed from the waist down. Just like that.

I was able to stay in the gym despite what was going on with her. She was a strong woman. She was in and out of nursing homes and went through some unimaginable pain but she was a tough lady. Amazingly upbeat considering the cards life had just dealt her. Looking back at it I think that was a big reason why I was able to keep on with my career at that time. If my mother had been depressed and sad all the time, I probably would have eventually retired from boxing. She wanted me to keep going, though. If she could then I could.

In 1995 I went on to beat Luis Oliveras, my former amateur peer Willie Kemp and former IBO World Champion Willie Ball before dropping a disputed decision at the end the year to Michael Nunn but I had given a good enough performance in that fight that I was still rated and being considered for a world title fight. One tune-up fight in between to keep sharp sealed my chance at a voluntary defense by Maske. It was set for May 25 of 1996 in Leipzig, Germany.

I first heard of Henry Maske in the late 1980's when he was one of the very best amateur middleweights in the world. Heading into the 1988 Olympics I even predicted in a "Hartford Courant" Olympic preview that Maske and Canadian power puncher Egerton Marcus would be two of the toughest competitors at 165 pounds that year. So it was no surprise to me, of course, when both of them ended up advancing all the way to the finals with Maske winning a 5-0 unanimous decision to take home the Gold Medal. Henry turned pro the following year after moving up to 178 pounds and finishing out his amateur career by defeating the great Cuban Pablo Romero in the 1989 World Cup tournament. Maske had also defeated Sven Ottke more than once in amateur competition, including once by stoppage and, as a matter of fact, the only guys that immediately came to my mind as having beaten him in the amateurs were the great Cuban Angel Espinosa and the amateur world champion that I beat to make the Olympic Trials in 1988, Darin Allen of the USA.

As a professional he went on to defeat a good champ in Prince Charles Williams for the IBF title and, by the time he fought me, Henry was making his 10th title defense. One of his previous successful defenses was a tenth round TKO over former three division Champion Iran Barkley. Another defense saw him decision 1988 United States Olympian Anthony Hembrick.

The thing about Maske was that he was very tall (6’ 4”), rangy and had a good boxing style. He was not one to mix it up on the inside and, really, he was very much a ring technician who had no problem with winning on points. Many European boxers, and fans, don't seem to have that lust for the KO like their Americans counterparts do and it shows in their appreciation of boxers like Maske, Herol Graham, and Sven Ottke.

We decided to train for the fight at "Treasure Island" in Central Florida again, where I had trained for Nunn, and this time the weather was even better. The first thing I did in preparation for this fight was try and get future top contender Eric Harding again as a sparring partner but he was back in Philly and hadn't been in the gym for quite a while at that time. I talked to Marvis Frazier about 168 pounder Ernest Kennedy, also out of Philadelphia, but he wasn't in the gym either at the time. There just weren't a lot of tall, rangy southpaws around like Henry. I had a friend of mine, a pro out of Pennsylvania named Andy Sarkozy, that was tall and could box good but he was a right hander. We took him anyway and he boxed as best as he could while going southpaw. That was pretty much all we had.

A lot comes with fighting for a world title on that level. It is not just a case of you training for the fight, you go fight and then you go home. When you fight for a world championship, there is a lot of hype and exciting happenings going on right up until fight time. It was something I had always dreamed about and imagined. When I was there in Florida the Mayor of Treasure Island came by one day with several members of the press in tow and he presented me with the key to the city. Several members of a TV crew also made the trip to Treasure Island from all the way over in Germany (RTL Television) and stayed with me for a few days as they filmed my every move. They got some great clips, too, and it was during their time with me that I realized what a big fight this was going to be. It was a thing where they shadowed my every move. When I was up running on the beach at 6 AM, they were there and they were with me at the gym in the afternoon, too. They filmed me as I commandeered a boat through the canals of Treasure Island and they filmed me as I typed letters to people back home and they were right there when I received the key to the city. One day Andy and I even took a trip to Disney World and these guys called ahead and told the Disney people who I was and what they were there for and it was arranged that not only would we get in the parks for free, but these guys would be allowed to follow me around and film my stay at the Magic Kingdom.

So we get there and it wasn't long before I started getting a little irritated. I mean, having them follow you around like your a big shot is cool for a while and it's funny to see all the people stop and point at me and ask each other "Who is that??" At one point, though, I was crossing one of the little bridges they have in the Magic Kingdom that separates parts of the park and these guys yell over to me that they "didn't get a good enough shot" and that they needed me to redo my last twenty steps across the bridge. OK, fine. Then we are on the monorail that takes you on a park tour high above the ground and because these guys needed to get a certain shot, I had to sit in a certain seat they chose and look out in a certain direction as they filmed me. It seemed like every move I made that day was choreographed by this camera crew and it got to be where I was ready to go back to camp after just a couple of hours. I was training for this big fight and this was my one day off from what was a grueling camp and I wanted to relax and have fun with Goofy and the boys, but these guys (and it wasn't their fault, they had a job to do) were making it seem like I was working harder at Disney World than I was back in the gym every day. I was telling Andy, "This is just for one world title fight. Can you imagine what Michael Jordan and Muhammad Ali and guys like that must have to go through almost every day of their lives??"

If there was one good thing that came out of all the attention, it was when the park officials arranged for me to jump to the front of the very long line that was waiting to see the main mouse himself, Mickey. So I get up there and this guy dressed up as Mickey obviously knows who I am and he starts putting his little paws (do mice have paws?) up like he wants to box with me. Andy yells out "Don't do it, Ice. Don't forget about the shark lady back home." And with lawsuits still fresh in my mind, I never laid a finger on the mouse. I swear.

Looking back on it, I can say that part of me feels like the whole build up to that fight was all a great event in my life. Like a "Rocky" thing where you get a shot at the "Greatest title in the whole world" and everything you do and say in the weeks preceding it are going to be with you forever, printed in permanent ink on the pages of your mind. For a time in your life it is like all eyes are on just you and everybody you ever knew or met in your whole life knows all about this episode in your life and that, kind of like Rocky said, you "aren't just another bum from the neighborhood."

(Not that I ever felt like a bum in any way, shape or form at any time in my life, don't let me paint the wrong picture for you here, but I understood what Mister Rocky Balboa meant when he threw that line at Adrian. Competing for the world championship of anything has a way of setting you apart from a large number of the people you grew up with. Not better or worse, just apart. There are people I know or that have met me that probably met someone else that maybe was a boxer at one time in their life but how many people ever get to say they know or even met a guy that fought for the IBF Championship of the whole wide world? For many people, I assumed, I would be the only one ever. So that was pretty cool. Still is.)

But at the same time I look at it all as something less than memorable. The thought that just having heart and desire and skills might be enough to succeed "if you really want it bad enough" was replaced with thoughts of what I considered more realistic to the business of professional boxing. It was a situation where I was going in with an undefeated superstar ("The Michael Jordan of Germany" was one way I had heard Henry described) in his home country in a fight that was officiated (judged, refereed and promoted) by those that were clearly not on my side, in front of 14,000 fans in a German venue that stood on land in the town where Henry lived. I was facing a 6’ 4” boxer that was not the type of guy to test himself with any infighting. He was perfectly happy and satisfied with carefully boxing you and winning on points and I was very, very aware that winning a decision under such circumstances was extremely unlikely. And if I wanted to be a real life Rocky I would have to come up with an ending that was usually reserved for those types of movies.

Back on the home front, my mother was bedridden and gravely ill while I was preparing for this fight.

One day in camp, I got up early to call her first thing in the morning as usual. I dialed the number at about 7AM and I was very surprised, to say the least, when a Windsor Policeman answered my home phone to tell me my mother had just been brought by ambulance that morning to the Hospital. So now, I am there a thousand miles away from home, training for the biggest fight of my life, and I am wondering where my mother is and what's happened to her. Am I going to have to cancel the fight? Am I heading home tonight? What if I go to Germany and something really bad happens while I am there? What do I do then? What do I do now??

To pile on some more pressure to what I was already feeling…

I had some lady back home in Connecticut suing me with what was certainly a bogus lawsuit. I found out about it in detail when my manager faxed the story down to me at my training camp that was in our local paper, "The Hartford Courant." The headline read something like "Scully accused of assault." Great. I spent my whole life staying out of trouble and now, before the biggest and most high profile event of my career, I have everybody back home reading about me in a negative light in a story that makes it appear like I am some kind of brutal guy away from the ring. The typical brutish boxer that people that don't follow the sport very closely might imagine us all as.

Nine months earlier, I was at an amateur boxing event with some kids from the gym and there was this lady dressed as a shark and working as a mascot/greeter for the event. I was being playful and I walked up to her (not even realizing that it was a woman) with my hands up like we were going to box each other. She put her little fins up and we played around for just a few seconds. At one point, I flicked out my left hand and touched the end of the snout of the uniform with my fingertips. After we walked away, I remember thinking how "I'm glad I didn't hit that costume with my fist because the outer shell was a lot harder than it looked."

Later on in the night, I saw the woman (that would later come to be known as the "shark lady") without her headpiece on. The guy that ran the show pointed her out to me. I ended up laughing with her about it at ringside moments later with a few of her friends. That was the end of it. Or so I thought. That was in mid-August of 1995. The next day goes by. Then a week comes and goes. Then two weeks. A month. September, October, November, December, January, February and March go by and she is long forgotten. I am now in training for the Maske fight and one day I get a letter in the mail from an attorney with paper work detailing a lawsuit against me.

I am reading it and it includes the description with what supposedly happened that night in August. At first, I am reading it and I have no idea what they are even talking about. The details of what they were describing didn't gel with what my memory told me. The description of her injuries and the incident that took place made it seem like someone (me) had viciously attacked her and they actually said she had "scarring, bruising, lacerations, etc." When it dawned on me what this thing was actually saying I got nervous, mad and scared all at the same time. I called the lawyer on the spot and told him "This lady is lying. You should be representing ME." I naively explained it all to him thinking that he would see that I was telling the truth and that he had made a mistake in taking on her case. I didn't stop long enough to think he was a defense lawyer. Common sense and fairness often doesn't come into play with these guys. He got arrogant with me on the phone and his tone of voice was unfriendly and challenging. That's when the fighter in me came out and I said to him "What? You think you're going to win? I'll see you in court and I want you to watch us crush you AND her."

And I hung up in his face.

Bye.

A few years later I finally ended up going to trial and ended up having to pay thousands in lawyer fees to fight this claim. I remember going to the courthouse and when we got to the courtroom, I saw the witness box and it was like I was about to be in a courtroom drama. I was thinking maybe the judge will have a reason to bang that gavel on his big wooden desk and yell out "You're out of order!" (I had never even been to court before. I saw "And Justice For All," though).

Could I yell back "No, YOU'RE out of order!!!" or would I get thrown in jail for disrupting the courtroom? I had all these pictures in my head of what a trial was supposed to be like and in my own crazy way I actually looked forward to going through the whole process. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen, so as long as I was there I figured I would just chalk the whole thing up to life and its experiences. I wanted to see first hand what it was actually like to be on trial. I never got the chance to yell at the judge or anybody for that matter, though. The whole process was pretty calm and professional. A little bit disappointing, I have to admit. Anyway, I ended up winning the case in what seemed to be a pretty simple decision. After I listened to her on the witness stand and then got up and did my thing, I was pretty confident that I was coming out the winner.

I remember saying some things, not really trying to be funny, but being funny all the same and having the court stenographer have to hide her face so nobody would see her smiling. It was almost like being on stage or in front of a camera. At one point, after they had listed all these terrible injuries that she supposedly got from me I said "Your honor, I am not known as a really hard puncher in the game of boxing, but I hit hard enough, and to tell you the truth I have been trying for years to do damage to guys like what they say I did to this lady and I have never accomplished anything close. Now, I am no Mike Tyson but I am telling you now, if I had ever walked up to this unarmed woman and hit her like she is saying I did, then I think we would be here for a murder trial instead of this thing we've got going on here today."

I won the case.

The thing was, back in May of 1996 when I was about to board the plane for Germany, I had no idea how that case was going to play out. I only knew that everybody back home was reading in "The Courant" about this assault case being lodged against me. I wondered if people would rush to judgment and think of me as "that type" of guy. I also considered the possibility that her lawyers could somehow freeze my purse from the fight and hold it until this case was played out. Could she do that? Could I be fighting this fight for nothing? Could I end up losing all of it? These are the thoughts I boarded that plane with in Tampa, Florida on May 15, 1996.

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Part II is finished and will be included in the final copy of THE ICEMAN DIARIES